


Until I Save You

by TheBrokaryotes



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Flashbacks, Gen, Injured Characters, also open ending kind of, also sam is bi bi BI, i literally love until dawn, sam is such a badass, she deserves so much more, thats right, there is actual text from the game i couldnt resist, there is violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-09-28 05:22:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10074008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBrokaryotes/pseuds/TheBrokaryotes
Summary: What if Sam didn't leave Josh alone in the mines with Mike? What if she went with him instead?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in Until Dawn hell  
> also Sam is my favorite

_ Relief. Anguish. Fear. Shock. Comfort.  _

 

Sam wasn’t sure what emotion struck her hardest when she and Mike had found Josh down in the mines. By some pure stroke of luck, they had managed to find the last remaining Washington child alive, although if he was relieved, his demeanor didn’t show it. 

 

Rather, Josh was the physical manifestation of the utter hell she had gone through tonight. 

 

He paced around tediously, never ending, his eyes hazy as if he were seeing a different reality. There was a constant stream of garbled words escaping his lips, slipping his grasp like a bar of soap evading a man’s clutches in the shower. The only coherent sentence that Sam could make out was the constant repetition of, “I trust you, I trust you.” 

 

Josh Washington was a far cry from the person he was just hours ago, Sam thinks. He was seeing a different world, hallucinating up horrors more traumatizing than her experience tonight. Maybe his horrors didn’t end there, Sam supposed, maybe they’ve been happening for a long time. She isn’t sure what to say to him, the one person who she could freely talk to after the events of last year, but before the blonde can even attempt to interact with Josh, an impatient Mike beats her to the chase. 

 

Mike strikes Josh, causing the other man to splutter out almost indignantly. It’s a ridiculous thought, but Sam swears she saw the exact moment the dark purple bruise spread across his face, she swears that she heard the blood vessels break and his heart kickstart again. She can’t stop the involuntary flinch from herself, however. Mike never half-assed things, she knew this much; it was only fitting that he would not be gentle with Josh. 

 

“Snap out of it, man,” Mike hisses to Josh whose eyes were blown wide like he had just taken ten volts of electricity and a shot of vodka back to life. 

 

“M-Mike?” 

 

His eyes were unfocused, almost unseeing, but his utterance of Mike’s name was reassurance enough for Sam; even though it wasn’t one hundred percent, Joshua Washington was still there. He was still there with them, even if it wasn’t fully. Sam could still save him, she and Mike could get him out of there. 

 

He shifted in his almost comically baggy overalls, hands wavering in front of his face defensively, as if every breath pained him, as if he could not take more abuse. Sam could see the whites of his eyes, where they were flitting every direction anxiously like a man who had only five more seconds to see the rest of the world. 

 

“Please don’t hit me again,” he groaned pitifully. If they made it out alive, Sam promised silently that she would berate Mike for the punch, but the brown haired man looked painfully unapologetic. 

 

“Sorry man, you were going full mental-jacket,” Mike said simply.

 

Josh opened his mouth, presumably to respond, but then closed it again. Self-confidence shot, sanity wiped, senses dulled— he was just as good as he was the day Hannah and Beth went missing, Sam thought— drunk, out of it, practically unresponsive. 

 

She shook her head once to clear the toxic thoughts, and clasped Josh, forcing his gaze to meet hers. They didn’t have time for this, they had to get the fuck out of here, but Sam wasn’t leaving until Josh knew the truth. He needed to know the goddamn truth. 

 

“Listen Josh, okay, just listen,” She panted out harshly, scanning his gaze desperately for signs of his comprehension. When his eyes finally locked with hers, she continued speaking. 

 

“They were alive, okay? I mean, Hannah was. She was alive Josh, and she was down here.” 

 

Even in her exhaustion, she remembered how she and Mike had found Hannah’s diary vividly, as if it were a nice little movie that the Psycho was playing for her in the media room— except, instead of Josh getting bisected in half, innards flying everywhere like a grotesque piñata, she was watching herself. She could see herself and Mike picking up the diary, herself reading the words in the gut-wrenchingly familiar handwriting, and she can pinpoint the exact millisecond when she realized what happened to Hannah. 

 

_ “Fuck, Mike, fuck… this is Hannah’s diary.”  _

 

_ Sam picked up the girlish pink notebook, repressing the violently screaming wave of nostalgia that threatened to overtake her. It was too familiar, it was all too familiar. In these winding caverns, in these foreign mines, she hadn’t been prepared to see anything this familiar.  _

 

_ Her arms shook like a newborn calf as she forced herself to open the notebook. The pages were all tinted purple with an innocent star design pre-printed in the corner of each page. The browning blood stains dashed any image of innocence that this diary once could have held.  _

 

_ And then she read the entry aloud:  _

 

_ “Day 1: My little sister is dead. The fall killed her... I watched the color drain from her face. My leg is broken. I'm all alone, stuck here with Beth's body. Someone will come soon.” _

 

_ She couldn’t breath. She positively couldn’t breath. She thought she had gone through hell tonight, but Hannah…  _

 

_ Hannah didn’t die, not immediately. She had to watch her own sister die in front of her, clinging onto the hope that someone,  _ anyone _ would find her. Would she ever believe in her wildest dreams that the search party scoured the mountains for months? That they probably passed over her slowly dying the most excruciating death?  _

 

_ She swallowed the rock residing in her throat, and continued reading.  _

 

_ “Day 30: I'm sorry Beth. I have no choice. I'm DYING. It's the only way I can survive any more. If someone finds this I'm SORRY. I had to. I had no choice. Forgive me Beth. I'm sorry.”  _

 

_ Her voice cracks at the end of the entry, but something else is festering within the girl: utter horror. By some cruel, twisted fate, Hannah survived for a fucking month. Fucking 30 days. Because of a stupid prank, she lay there, every breath as agonizing as the last, and she lived.  _

 

_ And she had eaten her sister to survive. On this cursed mountain, she took the bite out of the poisoned apple herself.  _

 

_ Tears were flowing down Sam’s face freely at this point, but she flips through the pages still. The tremor in her arms has traveled down throughout her entire body; vaguely, she feels as if she has just been born, every word devolving her into a quivering mess. Sam hoped that the entries would end soon, she hoped that Hannah did not have to suffer another second—  _

 

_ “Day 33: My hands feel unclean. _

_ My nails fell out PUSHED OUT _

_ I am aching but no more COLD NO PAIN _

_ I am getting stronger!!” _

 

_ Liquid fire shot through Sam’s veins, only to be iced in the very next instant. Hannah was… Hannah was…  _

 

_ Sam opened the next pages, almost tearing them in her haste. She needed to know. She didn’t want to know. She wanted to stay as far away from the answer to her unspoken question as possible, but even so, she needed to know.  _

 

_ The next pages were devoid of Hannah’s familiar scrawl— rather, they seemed to be scratched in with dark black lines and more blood. The lines crisscrossed all over, as if the creature who made them was unable to comprehend what they were doing at first. The tiniest semblance of coherency emerged; although the handwriting was utterly devolved and unrecognizable, Sam could make out two words through her tears, repeated over and over like a sinister nursery rhyme: _

 

_ “HUNGER  _ _ HUNGER _ _ HUNGER  _ _ BETH _ _ BETH HUN _ _ GER BET _ _ —”  _

 

_ An invisible force sucker punched her to the gut. There was a constant macabre chorus in her mind, Hannah’s familiar laughter ringing in her skull, melding into the high pitched shrieks of the wendigo, the same shrieks that would haunt her for years to come.  _

 

_ Silently, for she could not physically bring herself to say a word, she handed the diary to Mike. She watched him as he absorbed the words on the last few pages, saw his emotions turn from the grim stoicness he’s had to adopt to survive the night into naked horror and guilt. A part of Sam wanted to scream at him, beat him for ever having played Hannah’s emotions like that. Another part of Sam feels infinitely grateful that Mike was here with her, realizing the horrid fate that had befallen Hannah along with her.  _

 

_ Mike gaped at Sam, and she can see the red in his eye as clear as day.  _

 

_ “Sam,” he paused, trying desperately to find his voice again, “Hannah is… Hannah was…”  _

 

“She was alive, Josh, she was fucking alive.” 

  
Sam tightened her grip on Josh’s shoulders, making sure that he was listening loud and clear. 

 

“She was scared and she was alone, because Beth, brave and beautiful Beth, died first. Josh, Hannah starved for days, weeks,  _ months _ , and she succumbed to the hunger,” Sam gasped at the end, trying to recapture whatever air she could before plunging back into her explanation. “She succumbed to the hunger because she was  _ human _ Josh. She was human, and now she’s a… a  _ wendigo _ . She’s turned into a monster.” 

 

_ She’s turned into a monster and no one was there to save her. _ Sam can’t bring herself to finish the sentence. 

 

Josh blinks at her. Once. Twice. And then thrice. 

 

At first Sam thinks that genuine comprehension is dawning on his face, but whatever sliver of hope she kindled was stomped out as Josh shrunk away from her grasp. He clutched at his temples, as if the wendigos were trying to rip him apart from the inside out, as if his very brain were trying to smash his skull into shards and escape.

 

“No, no, no,” he moaned again, every denial getting louder in volume, spiking up Sam’s anxiety tenfold. 

 

Mike looks like he’s going to hit Josh again before he can make any more noise and attract unwanted attention, but before Sam can even think about stopping him, Josh abruptly ceases. His hands slowly come down from where they were worrying his temples, and Sam almost misses it, but she just barely hears it, she just barely sees it. The slight quiver of Josh’s lips, his hushed “that’s terrible,” the haunting pseudo-defeat that has settled within the depths of his eyes— Sam almost misses it, but she doesn’t. 

 

She doesn’t. 

 

Before she can waste any more time, Mike, as expected, gets straight down to business. He grabs Josh by the elbow, firmly but non-threateningly. 

 

“Do you have the cable car key, dude?” 

 

Josh nods, stuttering out a quiet and unsure, “Y-yeah”.

 

He pulls the small, silver metal key, and places it shakily into Mike’s outstretched palm. The former class president gives him a curt nod. 

 

“Now, let’s get out of this fucking hellhole and back to the lodge.” 

 

Sam rather agreed with the sentiment. A light from the corner of the little clearing that Josh was pacing caught her eye. 

 

“And I think I know just the way out,” she said slowly, walking towards the filtering brightness. She walked briskly towards the source, and couldn’t help the small, almost hysterical grin that came to her face when her suspicions were confirmed. Whatever otherworldly entity out there must have been heeding her prayers this time around, because beyond a small stretch of rocks that she could easily scale lay a shortcut outside. 

 

A shortcut to the beginning of reclaiming their freedom, their  _ lives _ . 

 

She wanted so desperately to take it. 

 

Turning around, she gestured for Mike and Josh to come over. Mike does, with Josh trailing after him sluggishly, like a lost puppy following the first thing that moves in its field of sight. It did not help hamper Sam’s pounding heart or slowly rising blood pressure. 

 

“Listen, Mike, if you help me up, I can go back to the lodge and tell the others we’re okay.”

 

Or at least, that’s what she wants to say. She knows that Josh wouldn’t be able to make it up the rocky ledge, especially not in his mental state. Even if she left Mike down here with Josh to make it out of the mines, would Mike have patience with the remaining Washington child? Would he? Or would he leave him behind at the first sign of his insanity, at the first sign that Josh was a threat to Mike’s own safety, at the first sign that he was a  _ liability _ ? 

 

She chokes on her almost-words, before recovering quickly. And then, she makes one of her famous split second decisions, the ones that Beth used to tease her about relentless and  _ no, she can’t think of her right now  _ because they have to  _ fucking move _ . 

 

“I’ll help you up out this way, Mike. Go back and tell the others that we’re okay, and just meet up with them at the lodge. Keep everyone together and safe, and I’ll take Josh back up the way we came. He can’t come up this way, so I’ll bring him back that way.” 

 

Sam wonders if she sounds brave saying this. She doesn’t feel brave. 

 

Mike nods at her, sealing Sam’s fate. 

 

He clasps Josh’s shoulder with finality, choosing to ignore the way Josh flinched at the human contact. And then he turned around towards the light. 

 

As Sam kneeled down and held out her hands to provide a platform for Mike to step on, allowing the young man to better grasp the precarious rocks, he spared a glance back down at her. 

 

“Good luck.” 

 

There was no malice, no reassurement, no emboldening. It was just a familiar phrase, grim and terror-striking, yet Sam knew. She knew that she would need it anyways. 

 

Soon, Mike was just a shrinking figure in the distance, and Sam was still stuck down here. 

 

She gives one last fleeting glance at the opening above, wondering if it was the right choice to make. Wondering if she should have gone in Mike’s place. 

 

No use dwelling on it now, she supposed. 

 

Instead, she turns around and grabs Josh’s hand gently. Sam knows that she’s broken the status quo many times over her high school and middle school career, so she’ll just have to break the fucked up status quo here and come out of this situation alive. Along with the nearly catatonic Josh at her side, with her bones screaming bloody murder, she begins to retrace her and Mike’s steps back towards the exit of the mines. 

 

The mines are long and winding, but she knows this route, if just vaguely. Silence permeates her skull, and the only thing she can hear is the throbbing blood rushing passionately through her ears. The previously constant chorus of wendigo cries are nonexistent, and she knows she should feel comforted by this. She knows she should just count her lucky stars, and focus on getting herself and Josh out of here, but she can’t help the paranoia settling into her muscles like an electrifying infection. 

 

As they walk the familiar path, the soft  _ smack _ of their shoes against the ground being the only noise in the cavernous mines, Sam stopped as they reached the outstretch of cold water. She had almost forgotten about this part, the icy liquid claws having permeated her and Mike’s clothes as they waded across. The slightly damp of her dry-fit pants seeming to get even colder at the sight of pool. 

 

Taking a quick glance behind her to make sure Josh was still lucid, to make sure that the nightmares weren’t gripping at his brain. He was quiet, shaking, eyes wide, but alert. 

 

_ Good _ . 

 

“I’ll go in first, okay?” She said softly, waiting diligently until Josh nodded slowly in response. 

 

_ Great _ . 

 

Steadily, Sam moved into a crouching position near the ledge before the pool of water, dipping her first toned leg into the dark yawning abyss, watching the liquid engulf her body one limb at a time. She couldn’t control the onslaught of shivering that hit her, faster than a hurricane. 

 

She hated how she couldn’t see past the dark, murky surface of the water. She couldn’t see what secrets lurked underneath, couldn’t detect the dangers behind it. It was less than 25 meters across, she estimated based on the track courses she’d run countless times. But distance didn’t seem to matter in this universe, not in the one they’d been transported to the moment they set foot in Blackwood Mountain. 

 

It was up to Sam’s waist now. 

 

Wading through the placid water, she couldn’t help but notice how calm the surface was. It was as if someone had frozen it so gently that a single touch would melt it, causing mesmerizing ripples that would travel from end to end. With all the action of tonight, she thought that this would have been the easy part— rather, the calmness unnerved her. The deafening silence unnerved her.

 

Almost too silent. 

 

_ Splash! _

 

Every aching muscle in her body locked into place at the treacherous noise coming from behind her. She didn’t dare, didn’t even think for a damn second about moving. 

 

But there was no telltale screech to grate at her eardrums, no flash of ebony claws ready to tear through her brittle heartstrings. 

 

_ Fuck it _ , she thought, turning slowly around, agonizingly slow. 

 

A breath of pure relief escaped her dry lips unbidden, and all at once a wave of intense relief washed over her. It was just Josh. 

 

The black haired man had decided to get into the water to follow Sam, it seemed. He waded slowly, discomfort obvious on his face, but other than that Sam heard no complaints from him. 

 

Chagrin flushed warmly into Sam’s cheeks, and she rather welcomed it. It wasn’t a threat, no, it was just  _ Josh _ . She let out a low chuckle, muttering “fucking hell,” and turned around again, only a few meters away from the end of the pool. Allowing a few moments of standstill to get her heart rate down from whatever ungodly number it had surely spiked up to, she chanted a constant mantra in her head.  _ Almost there, almost there _ . 

 

One step forward. 

 

The constant gentle noise of water sloshing around, indicating Josh’s movement behind her. 

 

Two steps forward. 

 

She still hears him behind her, but it’s a little more muted now. Maybe he’s slowed down? It is pretty cold, so Sam doesn’t blame him. She continues walking. 

 

Three steps forward. 

 

A soft leathery brush against her ankles. Her heart sinks a million miles into the core of the Earth. 

 

“What th—” 

 

The wrinkled skin grips at her ankles in a bruising chokehold, and before she has anytime to warn Josh, before she even has any time to scream out in panic or gasp in a breath of air, the clawed grasp  _ tugs _ . 

 

Sam goes under. 

 

All she knows is the pitch blackness of the water. Then two, yellow, glowing eyes; predatory, angry,  _ hungry _ . Letting out a muffled, guttural scream underwater she tries to get as far away from the wendigo’s grip as possible, but if she was no match for it on land, she sure as hell was fucking  _ useless _ underwater and goddamn it, she knew it. 

 

But her lungs were crying out for air, her muscles screaming in agony, her brain begging her to just let it all end peacefully, just sacrifice herself to the demon before her, to just be put down in peace. As soon as all these thoughts soared through her mind rapid fire, the grip got tighter. It got tighter and tighter, constricting until Sam knew it would leave a bruise, until Sam knew that she was running out of oxygen, until Sam knew that in a few more seconds it would be too la— 

 

And then it was gone. The suffocating weight was gone from her legs. 

 

_ What the fuck, what the fucking HELL _ — 

  
She surfaced messily, gasping for oxygen with a raspy intake of air. 

 

_ Where is it, where is that monster, holy fuck— _

 

She was getting tunnel vision, the world blurring at the edges dangerously. Her thoughts were a mess, a pseudo-coherent jumble of words, and her breaths were still ragged. She thought that every loud, harsh intake of air would be the death of her if the wendigo didn’t show up to finish her off. She needed to rest, she needed to stop and  _ breathe _ . 

 

Sam didn’t have the luxury of waiting for her heart rate to settle again. 

 

As fast as it had came, her tunnel vision dissipated, and a small part of her wishes it hadn’t. If it hadn’t, her eyes wouldn’t be widening in utter horror. If it hadn’t, she wouldn’t be seeing the back of the wendigo, facing Josh. Poor, poor Josh, with his red-shot eyes and his desperately waving arms, with his pitiful whimpers turning into agonized screams.

 

Poor, poor Josh. 

 

The emaciated creature reached out one spindly arm towards Josh. 

 

“No, you’re not real,” Josh whined quietly. “No, no, no, you’re not  _ real! _ ” His voice increased in volume. 

 

Sam tried to yell, she really did; she tried to tell him to run, to defend himself, to do anything but  _ stand there _ . But no words would come out of her ragged throat, for words betrayed her tonight. All she could do was stand there, waist-deep in ice-cold water from the river Styx, and watch her bestfriends’ brother get eaten by a monster. 

 

It would come for her next. She just knew it. 

 

The macabre creature shot out its arm, and grabbed Josh at the ribs, surely puncturing through skin in the process. 

 

Sam wasn’t sure if the screams she was hearing were truly from Josh, or if they were just the remnants of his memory echoing through her skull. She didn’t know if any of this was real. 

 

“No, no!” He’s screaming, every shriek embedding itself within the fibrous layers of Sam’s brain, storing away for later nightmares. 

 

The wendigo draws its other hand back, as if to slash the young man’s throat out, decapitate him like it had surely done to other sorry humans who had ventured down here. Sam thinks she can already see the crimson red blood flowing rivulets out of his neck, into the dark water; and then she sees herself impaled by the same claws as well, her life seeping out of her smoothly. 

 

But it doesn’t happen. 

 

Josh seems to falter in his screams for a moment, scrutinizing something on the wendigo’s right shoulder. He says something quietly under his breath, incredulously, questioningly, and Sam can’t make it out, not over the blood rushing through her ears. 

 

Then he starts again crying out again. There’s raw fear and recognition infused into his voice this time, rattling Sam down to her core. 

 

“No! Hannah, no! Nooo, no!” 

 

The wendigo tilts its head in a perverted rendition of human confusion. By what Sam can only chalk up to freak luck, it slowly drops its previously threatening claw, and screeches a god-awful, high-pitched scream. 

 

Then it walks the way they had come through, dragging a still screaming Josh along with him

 

Not a minute later, it’s gone. 

 

Not a minute later, it’s quiet again. 

 

The water is completely calm again, deceptively calm. It hides the secrets of any previous struggle that may have taken place here. It hides the signs of a wendigo almost impaling Joshua Washington on its cruel talon. It’s completely placid, dark, murky, and frozen in time. Quiet, quiet, relaxing. 

 

And Sam can’t fucking breathe. 

 

_ Holy fuck, what the FUCK, Josh, oh fuck oh fuck! _

 

A constant stream of curses chorused throughout her brain, and she doesn’t feel like she’s there anymore. Not truly. Her body’s there, but Samantha Giddings isn’t. She’s elsewhere, she knows she’s elsewhere, because elsewhere she can  _ breathe _ . Elsewhere, the oxygen isn’t flowing into her lungs with great, heaving sobs; elsewhere, she is alive and well, and she isn’t hyperventilating violently. Elsewhere, she isn’t thinking about what she’d tell Mike when she got back to the lodge. 

 

_ She ran into the house, the house that once held such fond memories, defining bonding moments, and closed the door behind her as if a wendigo had been chasing her. She didn’t know if one was, but she had to get inside the house as quick as her legs would have carried her. She’d had enough of the outside world, and needed to know that her friends were safe.  _

 

_ Mike startled at the slam of the door, before quickly coming face-to-face with Sam.  _

 

_ He let out a relieved breath, drawing Sam in for a quick reassuring hug, before letting go of her again.  _

 

_ “Mike, Mike,” she garbled incoherently, relief and fear simultaneously coursing through her veins. She felt drunk and sober all at once; it was head-ache inducing.  _

 

_ “Sam, what happened to Josh?”  _

 

_ Josh. The name was a distant memory, a shell of a person whom Sam had once known. An entity that no longer existed in this world.  _

 

_ “It got him,” she wheezed out, every word painful, every syllable wringing her organs cruelly.  _

 

_ Mike blinked, before taking a step back. He drew a shaky hand to his forehead, groaning out, “Oh god, what an awful way to go.”  _

 

_ Sam couldn’t have put it more concisely.  _

 

_ However, conciseness was necessary; it was a matter of survival. They had no more time to waste, no more words to spend on Josh’s precious state of being, no more breaths to spare for his fleeting memory.  _

 

_ And so they continued. They move on, just like they’d been doing the entire night at the mountain. They’d go on, and they’d either survive the night or they’d die at the hands of the wendigo.  _

 

And Sam couldn’t deal with that. She simply could not deal with that. Sam could not do that to Joshua Washington, and so she waits. She waits until her body stops shivering, she waits until the cold no longer seems cold, she waits until the numbness spreads from her toes to her brain. 

 

When it does, when her brain finishes spouting the millionth reason not to do this (she’s doesn’t know the mines fully, she’s good at climbing and running but not at fighting, she couldn’t defend herself against a fake Psycho much less a wendigo) she grits her teeth. 

 

Sam wades out of the water, allowing the water droplets to run down her bruised and bloodied skin. 

 

She looks down the way the wendigo that carried Josh went. 

 

And then she follows it. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im on a writin spree

He supposes he should ponder on the surrealness of the entire situation. 

 

_ “Class president!”  _

 

Sometimes, it feels like a faraway memory, a distant joking name that his friends used to call him teasingly. It was also  _ his _ title. He earned it, he worked hard to become class president. Although he wasn’t  _ Miss 4.0 GPA _ like Emily was, he still struggled like hell to get the successful future his parents always wanted for him. The future he knew he wanted as well. 

 

But now? 

 

He’s turned into something different. He’s changed, just like Josh, but unlike the remaining Washington child, it’s only taken a handful of hours in this godawful hell to change him. He’s hardened into someone unrecognizable, into someone he doesn’t know he’d want to be seen next to in the real world. 

 

_ The real world _ . 

 

This world wasn’t the real world. They’d taken a one-way ride up a rickety cable car into this surreal nightmarish land, and they just had to wait until they woke up. 

 

Except, some of them might not wake up. If the monsters from the shadows didn’t get to them first, they would get to each other. He didn’t want to admit it, but in a moment of frenzied passion, in a moment of fevered tension, he almost pulled the trigger. He could almost taste the gunpowder on his tongue, and even now, he thinks he can feel the gentle, beckoning curve of the trigger, its soft ridges calling his name. 

 

_ No, this wasn’t the Mr. Class President that his friends had known and adored _ . 

 

He had almost shot Emily for fuck’s sake. He had almost taken the life of his ex-girlfriend, the person whom he had once caressed in his arms like a treasure, the girl he had held in his greeting embrace not 24 hours ago. And he knows,  _ goddamn it _ , he just knows that he wouldn’t even fucking flinch. Not when her blood splatters the walls, not when her eyes go lifeless in an instant, not when Ashley inevitably screams, not when Chris starts to look at him different when he thinks Mike isn’t noticing. 

 

He wouldn’t fucking flinch for an instant. 

 

Mike shakes his head, groaning aloud to rid himself of the fruitless thoughts. He settled on just trying not to think about it. 

 

_ I’ll just deal my fucked up mental shit later _ , he concluded, knowing that there was no choice but to move forward. Out of all the choices he made today, this one wasn’t his to make. 

 

_ Jesus  _ though,  _ was Sam doing alright? _

 

Briefly, Mike hoped that she and Josh would make it out of the mine alive. The only weapon Sam has, if it can even be considered a weapon, was the lantern he left with her. 

 

_ It’s not really a weapon _ , the helpful voice at the back of his mind supplies,  _ she wouldn’t be able to light herself on fire with that measly thing, much less a fucking wendigo _ . 

 

His grimace deepens. There’s no way to console himself. He should have let Sam get to the lodge first, she was quicker and more nimble than he was, and she might’ve gotten to the lodge by now. She was smart, she was brave— 

 

_ And she could be dead right now _ . 

 

If Sam doesn’t make it out alive, he as good as killed her. Leaving her down there without anything to defend himself. It wasn’t as if he had the gun on him either, but still, it just didn’t sit  _ right _ with him. 

 

_ Screech! _

 

It’s distant, muffled, but still ignites fresh hot fear within him. 

 

He picks up the pace, senses heightened, hyperaware of everything and anything around him. 

  
_ Not much further now.  _


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally love Rami Malek   
> also if youre still reading this fic, thank you! leave comments it makes me happy :)

_ This is a bad idea, this is a fucking bad idea, this is a bad motherfucking idea _ . 

 

The words reeled over and over on repeat through her high-strung mind, and Sam didn’t know how much more she could take of it. Every step she took was against every fiber of her being, every goddamn fiber. There were so many things wrong about following the wendigo that dragged Josh away instead of killing him instantly. For some cruel reason, it seems that the Washingtons were destined for suffering.

 

Of course, Sam had to play the hero and try to end  _ that _ cycle. 

 

There was of course the issue of being severely disadvantaged. She didn’t know the mines as well as Mike probably did, let alone as well as the hellish wendigo did. They’ve had years to map this place out, memorizing it somewhere in those grotesquely shaped distended skulls. 

 

Sam’s only had the past hour. The past agonizing, terrifying, gut-wrenching hour. Every second felt like a year, and every minute felt like a century. Even still, Sam wasn’t going to throw in the towel just yet. She was scrappy after all. 

 

A small twinge of humor buzzes through Sam, and despite the pain it gives her cracked lips, despite herself, she allows a small smirk. There’s no mirth behind— in fact, there may even be more pain, more unbidden nostalgia, more emotions behind it than what she needed to deal with right now. 

 

Scrappy Sammy. 

 

_ Sam had met the twins back in their first year of high school.  _

 

_ It was a new year, a new school, and of course, a new Sam. The first thing she had done when she set foot in the building was make a bee-line straight to the gymnasium to catch the track coaches as early as possible. Afterall, she had a goal to become the first underclassman to set a school record, and what better way than to join as early as possible?  _

 

_ And so, lo and behold, she soon gained a reputation amongst the team as the insanely athletic blonde vegetarian who was always,  _ always _ on the track. Always doing her best, pushing herself to the limit.  _

 

_ Sam was more than okay with this.  _

 

_ Months later, after Sam acquainted herself thoroughly with the chalky red track, she was on it again. Although her feet slapped the ground, it was like they were barely on it, just barely feathering between the painted white lines. Her coach called her the most “gangly legged lithe powerhouse” he’d ever seen. Sam had decided to take his choice words as a compliment.  _

 

_ And so, on her seventh lap, the familiar burn finally started to sink into her thighs. It stretched at her from deep within, causing twinges of pain with every moment, but not hurtful enough to incapacitate her; rather, the little achey pains were messages, Sam thought. They were challenges, goading her on to run farther, if she dared.  _

 

_ Sam loved a good challenge.  _

 

_ As she continued jogging, the blonde noticed someone at the side of the track, standing on the curb in the parking lot.  _

 

_ It was a tall-ish girl (although, everyone was tall-ish to the barely five foot Sam) with dark hair and animatedly waving arms. From this distance, Sam could tell she was mad, yelling into what seemed to be a phone angrily.  _

 

_ If she hadn’t been running, Sam thinks that she might’ve laughed at the scene. She’d never seen anyone scream that passionately into a phone before, but she guesses she’ll learn something new everyday.  _

 

_ “Samantha!”  _

 

_ Sam didn’t get the chance to wonder anymore about what the girl was screaming about, stopping her lap midway. Turning around, she jogged towards the source of her name.  _

 

_ “Yeah coach?”  _

 

_ Her coach, a sturdy old brown man with laugh wrinkles around his eyes (although Sam had never heard him laugh once) pointed towards the increasingly problematic girl.  _

 

_ “Go see what that girl wants. She’s scaring every passerby with her god-awful yellin’ and screamin’, and I can already feel a killer migraine comin’ on.”  _

 

_ Sam stifled an amused laugh. Classic coach.  _

 

_ Never one to say no to putting herself out there, Sam stood there for a couple more minutes with her hands on her knees as she caught her breath, and then walked towards the girl.  _

 

_ When she was within speaking distance, she noticed a few things immediately. For starters, she was definitely  _ pissed _ at whoever it was on the other side of that phone call. She was also one of the prettiest girls Sam had ever seen— luscious dark brown hair, soft rounded face, fluttering eyelashes, the works. And third, she was waving her arms around in a maelstrom of anger, so animated that it was almost comical. It was kind of cute, Sam thought. Cute, but also vaguely familiar.  _

 

_ “Hey, do you need help or something?”  _

 

_ The brunette turned her neck towards her so quickly, Sam thought she might have gotten whiplash. Later, she would learn that there was nothing that Beth Washington did slowly. Everything was quick, quick, quick, with impulse decisions and sometimes irrational decisions. She would deeply relate to her on a spiritual level.  _

 

_ Clearing her throat, the girl’s anger seemed to dissipate as soon as she saw Sam, but Sam knew that look. She’d seen it on her mom often, when her mom was about to go off on a tangent but gets interrupted by a phone call, so she has to act civil. Although it was never funny at the time, Sam would always smirk thinking about it afterwards.  _

 

_ “No, no, I’m just waiting for my stupid brother,” she says, “he was supposed to pick me up an hour ago.” Sam is sure she hears protest on the speaker of the cell phone, causing the brunette to glare angrily at it.  _

 

_ The blonde laughed, catching the other girl off guard. She let up a tentative smile at that as well.  _

 

_ “Siblings, am I right?” Sam said after a brief pseudo-awkward silence, cringing at her own painfully dorky words. Great, she thought, there goes her last chance at making friends with the pretty girl in the parking lot.  _

 

_ Surprisingly, however, she started laughing. Sam couldn’t believe her ears; she was laughing at her gawky attempt at joking, and holy shit, she looked even more stunning with a smile on her face.  _

 

_ Sam knew, she just knew, that this was the start of something great. This was the start of something new. And so, she decided that the least she could do for her companion was to keep her busy until her brother arrived.  _

 

_ She sat down on the curb with her, and they talked for what could have been hours. Later, Sam would look at her watch and realize it was only ten minutes, but she swears it was much longer than that. Even in the small span of time, she learned important things about her. Beth Washington, fellow freshman by day, fuzzy sweater aficionado by night— she hated sweet food but ice cream was okay because  _ how can you not like fucking ice cream _ , she binge-watched every episode of  _ Supernatural _ and her favorite color was purple.  _

 

_ Purple, purple, everything purple.  _

 

_ Sam would have loved to sit on that curb and listen to more about the spunky girl, but an expensive-looking BMW pulled into the parking lot with all the grace of a drunk elephant. It was sleek, black, and probably cost more than Sam’s college tuition would. Nice.  _

 

_ It pulled up to the curb, the driver’s window towards the two girls. The window rolled down to reveal a slightly disheveled dark-haired young man donning a sheepish smile.  _

 

_ Beth shot straight up her hands planted firmly on her hips, and the previously simmering anger boiled all over again.  _

 

_ “Fucking finally!” She yelled, stalking up to the car with a dangerous gait, murder in her eyes.  _

 

_ As she made her wait to the window, she stuck her head in pointedly. Sam had no doubt that her face was scrunched up, vexation written all over it.  _

 

_ “You are so goddamn lucky that I had her over here to keep me company, or I’d hav—”  _

 

_ The other man, presumably her brother, waved her off, clearly having experienced this type of treatment often. It was sort of endearing, Sam thought.  _

 

_ “Hey, better late than never, right?” He chuckled, his jovial words falling flat with Beth, who began climbing into the seat beside him. Sam had a feeling that she had experienced the “never” one too many times with him.  _

 

_ Then his gaze turns towards her, in all her sweaty, frizzy haired, ratty track-clothed glory.  _

 

_ And he smiled.  _

 

_ “Thanks for taking care of her blondie, but seriously,” he looked at her with a mischievous grin, “spending time with my sister? How has she  _ not _ destroyed your soul yet?”  _

 

_ “Blondie? Who are you, a bad 70’s sitcom?” Sam laughs in response. The man shrugs in response, as if to say “touché”.  _

 

_ “But honestly, anyone who can deal with beth after running laps in this hellish heat is scrappy as fuck,” he whistles lowly, the mirth never leaving his dark eyes. Sam rather hopes that he sees more of that smile.  _

 

_ Beth pinches his ears, eliciting a whiny “ow ow ow!” from her brother, and rolls her eyes with more sass than Sam thought her body could hold.  _

 

_ “Okay Josh, stop flirting with Sam and drive!”  _

 

_ Beth’s brother, Josh, rubbed his ear tenderly, before grumbling an admonished, “alright, alright.”  _

 

_ As Sam waved goodbye to Beth, who was smiling sweetly at her, Josh looked back towards Sam.  _

 

_ “Sam, huh? Scrappy Sam. Has a nice ring to it. See ya around, Scrappy Sammy!”  _

 

It was an awfully ridiculous name, she thought so herself. Every time they met after that, he would refer to her as some variation of Sammy (i.e. Super Sammy, Sloppy Sammy, and the one time she had fallen asleep at the twins’ house and gotten up at 2 p.m., Sleepy Sammy), but his favorite always seemed to be Scrappy Sammy. She thought it sounded childish, but he thought it fit her pretty well. Something inside of the blonde agreed with him, so she never really minded the silly nicknames. 

 

_ Drip. Drip. _

 

_ What? _   
  


She lifted a quivering hand to her face, only to draw it back, a wetness on her cheek forming. Fuck. 

 

The tears flowed freely, unbidden, as the memories hit her faster than a wendigo. Maybe just as painful. 

 

She and the twins had been really close, after that chance meeting with Beth. They had become partners in crime, doing every project together, going to school football games, prom shopping, and of course, annual trips to the Washingtons’ lodge in Blackwood Mountain. Throughout their escapades, Josh had always been there, teasing her as relentlessly as he teased the twins. 

 

After the events of last year, he became her anchor, and she thought she’d become his too. They helped each other cope through the bad nights, live through the dragging days, and Sam thought hard. She thought he was like a brother to her, he was the sweetest, funniest guy on earth. 

 

And then he took off his mask just hours ago. He revealed a Josh that Sam didn’t know. It wasn’t the Josh that teased her about being too short, about being a dumb blonde despite her straight A’s and occasional B’s, about being an animal-loving vegetarian who would probably murder anyone who tried to even crush an  _ insect _ in front of her. It wasn’t the Josh who held her tight when she showed up at his house at 1 a.m. after having had a gruesome nightmare about Hannah and Beth, after having had a week of night terrors, after having been so sleep-deprived that she didn’t even remember showing up to his house— she was just  _ there _ . She was there because she knew he would be there for her. 

 

The Josh who took off his mask was a Josh from what Sam wanted to call an alternate universe, but she knew it was just reality. It was just fucking reality. 

 

_ And reality is a fucking shit-show _ . 

 

But still, the Josh she knew was alive. She knew he was alive, because she saw the damned monster drag him away, not tearing of his head or devouring him in front of her or doing god knows what else it would have done. Josh Washington was fucking alive, so Sam still had a chance. She let the Washington twins down, she hadn’t gotten to Hannah in time to warn her about the prank, she didn’t stop Beth from running out after her sister, but if she could change anything about tonight, she would try her damned best to not let Josh down. She couldn’t. 

 

Every step she took was a mile. She was going further, further into the heart of the mines, further into what could be her own doom. Even though she hadn’t heard any tell-tale screeches, or the faint skittering of rocks, Sam’s heart would not stop sending electric shocks through her veins. She was still riding the vestiges of adrenaline coursing through her body, but it made her feel fucking queasy as hell. In fact, she thought that she would be ready to collapse at any moment now, if not for the constant panic screaming at the back of her mind, the fundamental sense of self-preservation still going strong. 

 

_ But, there weren’t many wendigo left, were there?  _ If Sam had to wager, she’d say that the one she’d just seen drag Josh off was one of the last ones left. 

 

_ Besides, Mike said he destroyed most of them at the sanitorium. I mean, there are probably more out there, dispersed throughout the mountains, but not down here in the mines, right?  _

 

Life was a cruel thing, a comical sequence of events that held humor in every instant a human being took a breath. Tonight, Sam experienced one of life’s more  _ dark _ bouts of humor, a gruesome mix of slapstick with wendigos included somewhere in the mix of what would normally be simple physical and mental devolution. 

 

_ Screeeeech! _

 

Tonight, life was simply  _ fucking _ with Samantha Giddings. 

 

The piercing cry was like an immediate answer to her thoughts, an answer to a pointedly rhetorical question. It was a little lower pitched than the cry of the wendigo that snatched Josh away, and still seemed to be some ways away— but really, how could Sam tell with the misleading echoes of these winding mines? 

 

Her neck cracked painfully as she turned around like a whip, her heart immediately doing somersaults. She thought she would have puked if there were anything in her stomach at the sight. 

 

The unmistakable, haunting shadow of a wendigo right behind the corner. 

 

_ Fuck _ . 

 

_ Okay, Sam, okay, you have two choices here: run or hide? Do I run or do I hide, do I run or do I hide— oh God, did the shadow just move? Oh god, oh fucking hell, oh no— _

 

The choices that were previously floating around leisurely in her mind’s voice were now screaming, screaming louder than the wendigo, shrieking bloody murder, bouncing of her skull like a rubber ball with all the force of a hydraulic press, and  _ fuck, if I don’t get a goddamn hold of myself right now, I’m going to be dead, I’m going to DIE! _

 

Her muscles ached. The shadow was getting closer. She swallowed what little saliva would be pushed down her dry, parched throat. The shadow was getting closer. She’s always been nimble, quick,  _ Speedy Sammy— _

 

She saw the beginnings of that deathly pale skin and snapped. And so, she ran. 

 

_ Shrieeeek! _

 

Bad choice. 

 

She didn’t know if the wendigo had heard her or sensed her move or a combination of the both, but it started running after her. She didn’t have to turn around to her the unearthly  _ skritch-skratch _ of its extremely fast movements. She wanted so badly to scream, every slap of her shoe on the rough dirt floor as loud as a million car crashes battering on her ear drums, the blood rushing through her ears like a deadly hurricane. But, if she screamed, she would attract more of the monsters, so she didn’t. 

 

Adrenaline coursed through her again like an old friend that she’d had enough of for one night, and pushed her forward. 

 

She ran twisting corners, jumping precarious ledges and choosing between every fork in the road in a split second. In a fucked up way, it reminded her of when Josh— when the  _ Psycho  _ was chasing her in the lodge, how she ran her best despite being clad in only a towel, how she knew that she had to get away,  _ get away _ or else she would be no more. 

 

Five turns later, her thighs were screaming at her to stop, her lungs threatening to burst, but she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t because  _ oh God _ , the screeches were getting louder, and she knew that this one wouldn’t be as forgiving as the one that got Josh; this one would end her life. 

 

In the midst of her toxic hysterical thoughts, she didn’t notice the small, jutting pebble in the middle of her path. Her right foot landed square on it, as if it were proudly hitting bulls-eye; one moment, Sam was watching the quick blur of her surroundings as she ran for her life, and the next moment she met the ground with a harsh  _ thud _ . 

 

Pain blossomed throughout her upper body, which had taken the brunt of the fall, her arms scraping nastily with small cuts opening up. Tiny rivulets of blood flowed from them, soaking into the ground like a dark painting, but Sam wasn’t thinking about all that. 

 

What made her want to scream out in agony was the sharp twinge in her ankle, the one that now lay resting in a slightly awkward angle. 

 

She had twisted her ankle. Running was no longer an option. Sam was running out of ways to survive. Sam was running out of time. Sam was running out. 

 

_ Fuck, fuck, my ankle, fuck, it’s getting closer, oh fuck,  _ the constant litany of curses coursing through her mind like a flood. 

 

The screeches were getting louder and louder and  _ fuck,  _ she can’t run with her busted ankle, she can’t. Her one advantage had been whisked away from her in the matter of seconds, just as cruel fate had whisked Josh away. 

 

She could hear the  _ skritch-skratch  _ of the clawed hands hitting the ground, catching up to her. She only had around twenty seconds left before it would devour her, give or take. 

 

Shuffling up onto her knees and using sheer willpower to ignore the brutal pain in her ankle, Sam quickly scanned the area around her. After all, she only had one option left. 

 

Hide. 

 

_ Fifteen seconds left _ , the helpful unnervingly calm voice quipped in her mind. It shared an uncanny resemblance to Beth’s voice. Beth, who never caved under pressure. Strong, amazing Beth. 

 

Sam caught sight of something to the left of her, something she hadn’t noticed at first: a little wooden alcove formed by what seemed to be two deteriorating pieces of planks set against the mine walls long ago. 

 

_ Ten seconds.  _

 

Spurring into action with what little strength she had left, the blonde dragged herself on her hands and knees towards the tiny entrance to the alcove, ridden with cobwebs that may have disgusted Sam one, maybe two years ago. 

 

_ Five seconds left _ . 

 

She shimmied into the little niche, crawling in backwards, her gaze facing the opening of it. Choking back a sob, she stilled herself as best as she could, locking all her muscles into place, but  _ damn it _ , it was hard when the hellish screams of the wendigo were getting louder, were getting  _ closer— _

 

_ One second left _ . 

 

Sam prays to the God she didn’t believe in that she had made the right choice. 

 

_ Zero _ . 

 

Nothing. There was no noise. No  _ skritch-skratch _ , no screeching. It was silent. Another moment passed. And then another. 

 

_ Did I imagine the whole thing? _ Sam’s hysterical thought was fleeting. She  _ saw _ her answer not a second later. 

 

A flash of sickly greenish-white pale skin meandered into her vision, and her breath hitched painfully. Sam could see it, it was a few feet away from her, and it knew she was there. It had sensed Sam, it knew Sam existed, it had its target locked onto its prey. Sam was the prey, and it wasn’t like when the Psycho chased her. This wasn’t a prank born from the hysterical, deluded mind of her dead best friends’ brother. If she was caught, she if she made even one wrong choice, Sam was a goner. 

 

She can see the wendigo, she can see it prowling around like a fucked up variation of some sort of feral cat. She can can count each and every one of its distended ribs from here, she can see the pasty pallor of its skin, how it’s flaking off, deteriorating slowly, rotting. 

 

And then it turns around. 

 

Sam barely stifles a whimper at meeting those glowing egg-yolk-esque eyes. It was like watching a two-ton truck come straight at her, its blindingly yellow headlights her final warning before it crashed, before it snapped her neck in two, before the blood came cascading down in brilliant gory waterfalls, before her world went to black. 

 

Except, Sam isn’t dead yet. The truck doesn’t hit her yet. Instead, the wendigo stalks towards her, its uncanny gleaming eyes locked onto hers, and even though Sam knows,  _ she knows _ that it can’t see her, she has a feeling that these may just be the last eyes she see; the dead, tortured ones of poor humans who met their untimely fates, transformed into ungodly creatures. 

 

It’s closing in on her, and Sam  _ can’t fucking breathe _ . She doesn’t dare, not when its decaying flesh was only a foot away from her, only six inches away from her, only 3 centimeters away, only a hair-width’s away— 

 

She wonders what other horrors lay beneath those eyes. 

 

Her own are blown wide, widened out of proportion until she knows they’re bulging out, and she knows that she’s looking death straight in the eye. This is it. This is where her life ends, this is where her story ends— and no one will know what happened to her. Josh won’t make it out of the mines, she knows this much. And if they send a search party after him, well… if the search party had as much luck as the Hannah and Beth’s search party did, then Josh would be better off killed by the wendigo. 

 

Mike. Mike would be the last person to have seen her. He would blame himself for his death, she knows it, she knows how his stupidly brave, loyal brain works. She’s been neighbors with him since the second grade, and she just knows that Mike would drown himself in sickening guilt. He would waste away. 

 

Most of all, no one would know what she tried to do. She tried, she tried  _ so goddamned hard _ for Beth and for Hannah. She tried to save their brother, she really did. But in the end, the Washingtons really did have the worst luck; Sam just happened to get some of that negative luck, she supposed. 

 

But then the monster backs away. 

 

It sulks out of Sam’s line of sight, like a toddler angry over not having gotten to eat his favorite candy. Sam still hears the  _ skritch-skratch _ of its clawed feet and hands as it walked away, but it’s a much more reassuring noise now. The echoes of it get softer and softer until they cease, and all she hears is a faded screech. 

 

The dam breaks. 

 

Her muted emotions spill over, something inside of her snapping violently. The blonde let out a heaving sob, piercing the quiet air with her desperation. She gasped for air like a man dying of thirst, before collapsing fully, her head buried in her bloody arms lined with trickling cuts. It was all just too much for her to handle, too much all at once— relief tingled through her body, through every single bone, but consternation also boiled in her stomach, cramping the organ relentlessly. She wanted to vomit. She wanted to sleep for ten years. 

 

Instead, she just lies there. 

 

Sam lies there, cradling herself in her own bleeding arms, and stops. She takes a time-out, she wills her brain to stop whirring nauseatingly for just a few damn seconds, and the worked-out bundle of neurons takes mercy on her for the first time tonight. 

 

She closes her eyes. Blissful, silent black. No white noise, no screeching, no wendigos, no moral dilemmas, no bruises, no blood, no lodge, no mountains, no more. Nothing can touch Sam, nothing can even  _ look _ at her for these few fleeting moments. 

 

_ Breathe in. Breathe out _ . 

 

Her heartbeat steadied after what could have been hours, days, centuries. Her muscles stopped feeling like someone had set them on fire, a dull ache settling into them. It was a similar ache that permeated her throbbing ankle, but she knew if she put too much weight on the foot, the fire would come back tenfold.

 

And then Sam started thinking. 

 

_ I can walk. I’ve had worse falls than this, and I’ve survived.  _

 

The wheedling, giggling voice at the back of her head that sounded kind of like what she imagines a humanized wendigo would sound like, crooned,  _ but you’ve never had a wendigo chase after you before. And now you have what could be a sprained ankle  _ and  _ another boy to save, while saving your own sorry ass.  _

 

Sam’s breath hitched for a moment, before she forced herself to keep her heart steady. Steady,  _ steady _ , slow and steady. 

 

_ I can’t run anymore. I can walk, but I can’t run. If I find Josh, will I even be able to get out of the mines with him? Would I even be able to get out myself? I don’t know where I am, that damned wendigo chased me deep into this hellscape, and what would I even do if I did find Josh? How would I get the wendigo away from him? Fucking hell…  _

 

Her head spun with all the questions, but oddly enough, she didn’t start hyperventilating. She didn’t start panicking. 

 

It was as if her body was too tired, too exhausted for the show of emotion. 

 

Sam wanted to cry again, but she doesn’t. Instead, she drags herself out of the rickety wooden alcove that saved her life, and ignores the twinges of pain that attack her from every angle, at every muscle. 

 

Instead, she pushes herself up. It’s slow, agonizingly slow, and her bones creak in protest. Her arms are shaking on their way up, and her left foot takes most of her weight on the way up. Grasping at the rocky walls for support, she tests her right ankle. 

 

Shooting, spiking, prickly pain. 

 

“Fuck,” she hisses, immediately relinquishing most of her weight unto her left foot once again. Her thoughts were confirmed. She could put enough pressure onto it, enough to walk efficiently, but  _ definitely _ not enough to run. She was now a liability. Even if she found Josh, they wouldn’t be able to run away. Sam was a fucking liability. 

 

She doesn’t cry. 

 

A sharp scream echoes from deep within the mines. It sounds more human than wendigo. There’s a lead. 

  
Sam continues. Slowly, steadily. 


	4. Chapter 4

Mike is almost at the cabin now. 

 

Mike knows there’s a wendigo behind him. 

 

Mike knows he’s treading the line between life and death. He knows it’s a thin one, a precariously thin one. He knows it’s the same line that’s been playing with him the entire night, the one that will probably continue to toy with his life.

 

Mike wonders if he’s going to survive this one. The fear cuts down into his core, shaking his very bones, but he keeps going. He keeps going. 

 

Mike wishes he had wolfie with him. He wants a companion now. Smart, independent, brave, loyal Mike is scared. He’s six years old again and the monsters underneath his bed make him quiver in his boxers. He wants to call for his mother. 

 

Mike isn’t six years old. He’s too old to call for his mother, too far gone to be saved by her or anyone. The only one who can save him is himself. But how can he? No gun, no fire, nothing to burn down the son of a bitch. All he had was his brain and the blood flowing through his veins. That was all he had left. He didn’t even have his girlfriend anymore— he didn’t even know if he could pretend and hold on to the ridiculous hope that she was still alive. 

 

Mike wants to survive. Even though the monster is behind him, even though he hears its godforsaken shrieks every so often, Mike wants to survive. 

 

Mike wonders if this is how Emily felt when he had pointed the gun at her. Vaguely, he thinks he’s glad he let Emily live. Vaguely, he thinks he wouldn’t have lasted five seconds outside of the mines if he had killed Emily. Karma was a bitch. 

 

Mike wants to survive. 

 

Mike is almost at the cabin now. 


	5. Chapter 5

_ Taaaap-tap.  _

 

_ Taaap-tap _ .

 

The noise of her staggered footstops is faint, very faint, but it grates at Sam’s ears. It’s a constant reminder of her limp, of her throbbing, useless ankle. It was swelling now, and Sam swears that her chances at survival halved the moment she stepped on that damned pebble, the moment her foot twisted in that unnatural way. 

 

She continues following the path where she thinks the human-esque scream came from, but she didn’t hear it again after that. 

 

_ Who’s to say that you actually heard it, Sammy? _

 

Josh’s voice echoes through her skull, mocking, inviting, tugging at her heartstrings. Sam doesn’t have even a semblance of the mental fortitude needed to block it out. 

 

_ In fact, maybe you just heard another one of those monsters, y’know. Maybe you’re just walking to your death right now.  _

 

“No,” Sam whispered, stopping momentarily to shake her head, to stop the toxic thoughts from battering at her already bruised mental state. 

 

_ Maybe I’m dead right now, Sam. You’re too late. It ate me, and you know what? It’s still hungry, Sammy. It told me too, right before it swallowed my guts. It told me what it thought of you— its excited to eat you. Get it? Eat? Like, ‘meet’?  _

 

Josh’s sweet laughter reverberated through her mind, before slipping into the filtered, unnerving laughter of the Psycho, until finally becoming the more deranged, high-pitched laughter, one eerily familiar to the scream of the wendigo that had taken Josh. 

 

“No!” She whispers again, louder this time. All at once, the voices go away. Their echoes still remain, and the blonde wants to rip her hair out in fist fulls, but she doesn’t. The throbbing in her ankle grounds her. It murmurs to her gently, speaking coherent words. 

 

_ You have no choice, Sam. You’re completely out of options. You can’t run, you can’t hide— you can barely walk. All you can do is move forward _ . 

 

So she does. Sam listens to the pain, and she moves on. She goes down the path where she thought she heard a human scream, and keeps walking. 

 

Although she’d run entire 5k’s before, this was the most painful walk of her life. Her muscles strained, and every part of her  _ ached _ . She felt like she’d been grated harshly upon sandpaper inside and out, and she was still walking. 

 

Somewhere along the way, she vaguely vaguely remembers seeing a cluster of skulls in a lonesome, darkened corner. They were picked clean, just as a starving man would strip a turkey leg of every single string of flesh, every single scrap, until it was  _ glistening _ . Sam thought she couldn’t imagine a worse fate than starving to death, stomach collapsing upon itself, gurgling relentlessly until the weakened deprived heart just  _ stopped _ . 

 

But she wasn’t starving yet. Her foot was hurt, but she wasn’t hungry. So she continued. 

 

More than once, the blonde thought she saw more shadows that could have been wendigos, but there was no accompanying tell-tale screech. Her eyes may have just been playing tricks on her. 

 

So she continued. 

 

Despite trembling in her own skeleton, her skin feeling like a foreign concept existing ten billion miles away from her, she couldn’t stop. 

 

So she continued. 

 

After a century of walking, a century of nearly stumbling, one hundred years of excruciating limping, her screaming muscles were greeted by exquisite, unbelievable relief in the form of  _ light _ . She had walked into a rather open portion of the mines, luminescence filtering into the clearing as the heavens looked down upon her. 

 

A hysterical chuckled bubbled at her lips, but she stifled it. She had made it. 

 

Sam had stumbled into her own, personal Garden of Eden. She had found her diamond in the rough, her one reprieve in this entire nightmarish experience, and any alarm bells that may have been ringing in the back of her mind were muted by the intense, giddy  _ relief _ flowing through her mind right now. 

 

Acute, all consuming white-hot much-needed relief. She didn’t have the mental capacity to stop the way her muscles quavered as the emotion flooded her body, having very tangible physical effects. 

 

It was all because Josh was before her, less than 25 meters away, curled up into a shaking, hyperventilating mess. 

 

And he was fucking alive. 

 

As if her heart kickstarted again, the gears started whirring one more, the cogs oiling into place and the lights flashing as they booted up, she started moving. She knew she shouldn’t have been moving that fast, every sharp lightning bolt to her ankle told her that much, but Sam didn’t give a single fuck, because Josh was  _ alive _ , holy shit, and the wendigo was nowhere to be seen. 

 

Apparently, life had gotten tired of shitting all over her life. And so, Sam, desperate for any sort of reprieve, grasped at the pristine olive branch; she was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

 

_ Taaaaap-tap.  _

 

_ Taaaap-tap _ . 

 

Her lurching footsteps didn’t deter her, not once, not until she finally made it to where the still-alive, still-breathing body lay, crumpled up into a pitiful fetal rendition. The rapid rise and fall of his erratic breathing was like watching a thousand cherry blossoms bloom in spring; pure, organic, full of life. He was desperate, like her, but still full of life. 

 

Sam doesn’t care about the penetrating pain in her knees as she dropped down to all fours, opting to cover the remaining meter between the two with her weight on her hands rather than her feet. She clambered clumsily over to him, reaching out with a shaking hand to grasp his shoulder. 

 

The flesh to flesh contact courses through her like an electric signal, the defibrillator that pumped life back into her heart so she could last another night. 

 

The other man jolts up immediately at the contact, propping himself up onto his elbows, before seeing Sam. The blonde is soaring, she’s completely and utterly encaptivated by the sheer aloe texture that was engulfing her body. She faltered a little when she noticed the blank look in his eyes. 

 

He was  _ looking _ at her, but not truly  _ seeing  _ her. The crazed manic panic was still evident through the tremors wracking his shoulders, his eyes blown wide, as wide as a newborn baby’s, uncertainty and unadulterated fear coursing through them. He was as sensitive as an open wire, and if Sam wasn’t careful, she would get electrified. 

 

Pink, dry lips open slightly, calling out for help. Sam moves a little closer. They part again, only to close seconds later.  _ He’s uncertain, he doesn’t know how to react. He can’t compute what he’s seeing in front of him. Does he know it’s me right now? Can he see me? Please, please let him see me, oh God, I need him to fucking see me, I need him. Say something, say anything— _

 

Soft lips tremble once more, and then he talks. The blonde has to move forward even more, almost crawling on top of him in her distress, to hear him. It’s barely a whisper, it’s a flamingly alarming mantra, and he doesn’t stop saying it. 

 

“No, no, no, Hannah, no…” Josh whimpers, beginning to curl up into a ball again. 

 

Although Sam’s stomach leisurely sinks into the quicksand pit it’d been treading with feather light steps for the past hours, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she shifts her weight none-too-comfortably onto her knees, and lifts her hands to grab the remaining Washington’s own quivering arms. 

 

She pulls him into an embrace. 

 

Josh freezes. 

 

It’s a much needed hug, it mends her tearing frayed nerve endings slowly but steadily. Every passing second with the warm body in her arms is another second she holds onto her humanity, it’s another second that she’s a leg ahead of whatever evil curse was at play in this wretched, god-awful place. It was more than therapeutic; Sam needed this, she needed it like the dolphin who spends its entire life underwater needs oxygen, she needed it like the fragile person she had become after her best friends went missing, she fucking needed it. 

 

He’s still stiff beneath her arms, but it doesn’t matter. Sam chokes in a dry sob, and then the dam is burst once again; the words gush out like blood flowing from a deadly wound, and she loses herself in the tidal wave of emotion. 

 

“Josh, Josh, it’s me, holy fuck, it’s Sam. You know me, you’ve known me for so long, Joshua Washington.” 

 

No response. Her arms constrict around him tighter, clinging onto him like a lifeline; her chin digs into their resting place on his shoulder. She finds it within herself to ignore the strench of rotting skin and blood staining his clothes. 

 

“Please, Josh, you don’t have to respond, you don’t have to talk, but  _ please _ let’s just leave. Let’s just get out of here. Josh, it’s Sam. It’s Sammy, good ol’ Samantha, you hear me? I’m here for you, I’ve got you, and I’m never going to leave without you. Not again. Not ever.” 

 

Her words get raspier and quicker, desperation and hopelessness battering her vocal chords relentlessly. 

 

No response. 

 

“ _ God, please _ Josh,  _ I can’t lose you too _ .” 

 

She chokes out her last-ditch effort to snap the boy out of whatever stupor he was in. Sam knew he was in a different world right now, she knew he was seeing things, seeing new horrors that she wasn’t. She could barely handle the horrors in this world, and didn’t know how he was experiencing both. Sam was fighting an uphill battle here, and she was down to her last reserves of energy. 

 

_ I’m sorry, Josh. I really am.  _

 

No energy left to say the last words, misery stabbing her through the ribs with an awfully dull knife. She can’t articulate them, not anymore. She can’t bring herself to leave him here alone. She has no strength to drag him to the entrance, barely has enough willpower to get herself out of here. She was at a dead end here. She wa—

 

“Sammy?” 

 

She leans back at the voice, pulling out of the embrace. Watery green eyes meet familiar, dark brown ones. 

 

She doesn’t respond. 

 

“Sammy? Sam?” 

 

She’s having a hard time talking around the all-consuming lump in her throat. 

 

“Please, Sam, say something.” His voice is quieter this time, less lucid, regressing. 

 

Sam snaps.

 

Immediately, her hands develop a mind of their own and shoot to Josh’s face around his cheeks. They’re squishy, solid, bleeding a little, and warm. They’re warm, and alive. It’s a good reminder, a necessary reminder. She never wants to move her hands from this position in a million years.

 

“Hey there,” the blonde rasps out, a small, surely misshapen smile illuminating her face. 

 

“Hey,” he breathed. 

 

They stare at each other for a long, blissful five seconds. She finds comfort in it, and by the way he’s relaxing slowly, she knows he feels the same way. 

 

Fear was relentless, however; as fast as it had gone, droplets of the terrors he had seen this night trickled their way back into his eyes. 

 

“No, no,” he moaned softly, “Sam, you shouldn’t be here. Sammy, you really  _ should not _ have been here.” 

 

Sam blinked. Josh continued. 

 

“You should have left me like everyone else did. Everyone leaves me, Sam,  _ everyone _ leaves me— my sisters, my friends— fuck, even my  _ parents _ won’t look me in the eyes anymore! It’s because I couldn’t save them, Sam, I let them down, I let them  _ suffer _ . They suffered because of me, Sam. I should have been there to save him, I couldn’t save them, I didn’t save them, and now I’m paying for it, oh  _ God _ , I’m paying for it.” 

 

His whimpered words quickly turned into gut-wrenching, sob-inducing wails. 

 

Sam clamped her hand over his mouth, paranoia prickling the hairs at her nape. Confusion was written clearly over his expressions, and somewhere in the back of her mind, Sam was grateful for the emotion; she was glad he could express a normal human reaction to her actions. She knew that the simple reaction had grounded her slightly in that moment. 

 

They were quiet for an agonizingly long, anticipatory moment. She needed to know that Josh’s voice hadn’t attracted any unwanted attention. Her ears strained precariously for any noises, the blood throbbing through her ears providing an irritating distraction. 

 

Five minutes later, no noise. No screech, nothing. 

 

Sam removes her hand. Josh opens his mouth to speak, but she stops it with a single finger pressed down the middle of his lips. 

 

It’s her turn now. 

 

“Listen,” she breathed, trying to contain her voice in a glass box as delicately as possible, “Josh, you are not alone. You were never fucking alone. If you don’t believe me, just… just trust me now. Trust me when I tell you that you are not alone right now. I’m here for you, Josh.” 

 

He looks gaunt and shook. But comprehending. Comprehension is all Sam needs. 

 

“I’m here for you,” she repeats again, slowly, “and so are your friends. So are  _ our _ friends. THey are waiting for us back at the lodge, Josh, we just have to get out.” 

 

He doesn’t respond. 

 

She breaks. 

 

Nose scrunching up, eyes screwing shut, she gasps in a heaving breath of air, and collapses face-first into his chest. Her hands grip onto his over-sized denim overalls, the Psycho’s costume, and she doesn’t let go. 

 

“Please Josh, oh god,  _ please _ , please, please,” the constant litany of muffled begging comes from the blonde as she manages to speak around her throat-tearing sobs. 

 

“Sam?” Shock is blatant in his voice, and she feels his hands on her back, traveling up to her shoulders. Gripping them gently. 

 

“Sam, what…?” He finish the question, but she knows just what he’s asking about. 

 

Her grasp on his clothing only tightens, relentless and terrified. She lifts her head minutely so her pleads are unmarred by the muffling abilities of his clothing. 

 

“Please, Josh please, please, fucking hell, we need to get  _ out _ . We need to get  _ out of here _ , I need you to come, please, please goddamn it,  _ I’m begging you _ .” 

 

Her near-hysterical garble fell upon his ears. She prayed to whatever ethereal entity it was up there that was toying with their lives that he heard her. They needed to leave, they needed get out right now, and she needed Josh to come with her. She hadn’t come all this way to lose him to the terrors conjured up by his own mind. She needed him to get out alive with her. She needed to. 

 

So Sam was reduced to begging. Her pleads increased in intensity; the Sam who she was right now, the blonde girl with the swollen, useless ankle, and enough tears to quench a drought-plagued village was foreign to her. 

 

Samantha Giddings never begged. She was a proud, strong woman, and she knew it. When she had a goal, she trained damn hard to get it. When she wanted something, she earned it. Even when the Psycho was chasing her, she ran as fast as her lithe limbs could carry her, not succumbing to the fear, never once stopping and dropping to her knees to beg him for her life. She didn’t beg. 

 

But now, the unfamiliar girl was kneeling, pleading, sobbing with all her might. Who was this girl? She didn’t know. All she knew was that they needed to get out. They needed to leave before it was too late. 

 

“Sammy? Sam, Sam, I’m here. I’m ready, I’m fine, let’s  _ go _ .” 

 

The lucidity in his voice was stronger now, and Sam thought she could have cried in relief. But there was no time. She didn’t know how long his possibly momentary grip on reality would be, so she instead, she moved forward. She lifted her head from his person, and once again moved her weight onto her hands before finally burdening her left foot to lift herself completely onto two feet once more. 

 

His eyes follow her body as she lifts herself up with no small amount of effort, and he follows suit. He is less unsteady than Sam. 

 

“Sammy, I’m here.” He repeats again, slightly holding his arm out to her.

 

“I know.” It’s barely a whisper. She grasps onto his elbow, and begins limping. 

 

She drags him towards where the light is the strongest, and although her surroundings get blurry at times, she somehow manages to focus. She looks forward, she tries her best. She wants to succeed. Somehow, she’s reminded of her track competitions; nerves wrack her body, but she only looks forward. Because, she knew she would trip and fall if she bothered looking at those behind her. She knew she would get overtaken if there was even an ounce of doubt in her veins. 

 

So she sees the light. She she walks towards it, Josh behind her. She doesn’t turn around. 

 

It’s an uphill battle, she knows it. She knows her stamina is waning quickly, draining like water permeating through an umbrella with holes poked into it. She knows she will not last much longer on her ankle; soon the pain would increase so much until she couldn’t even walk. She knows this. 

 

She keeps going. 

 

A sight more valuable than any damn diamond glistens in the mines before them. 

 

_ The entrance _ . 

 

They’ve done it. They’ve found the entrance to the mines. 

 

She can’t believe it. Unfamiliar euphoria strikes her harder than a brick, and an unbelieving huff of air escapes her mouth. They’re there. Just a few feet away. Her grip on Josh tightens, almost bruisingly so, but if he feels any pain, he does not comment on it. Why would he? Surely, he was basking in the glory of their impending freedom. They were in the homestretch, and she could see her family waving at her from the bleachers happily, she can see her coach waving his fists in the air madly, she could see the thin white ribbon that she had to break. She was winning, she was almost done, she was just there, she was fucking there— 

 

_ Screech! _

 

No. No no  _ no no, fuck no, this is not happening, this is— _

 

Sam has no time for denials. She has no time to think, no time to act, no time to move. She looks over her shoulder at a neck-breaking speed, seeing the wendigo, the same wendigo that took Josh away from her. It was so  _ quiet _ , didn’t even give them a moment’s notice, and now they were going to die. There was no other word for it than cruel. The situation was just cruel— the mine’s opening was  _ right there _ , and they weren’t going to make it. Someone would find their remains at the opening of the cave, while the pale-skinned bony wendigo had its way with them. 

 

Cruel. 

 

Or maybe it was pure  _ luck _ . 

 

Her eyes darted back to Josh, Josh who she knows is about to scream out in fear, about to clutch at his temples again and try to shake away the sight of the monster, but can’t. Sam knows that she can’t make it out of this one, not with her foot like this, not this time.

 

But  _ he can _ . 

 

“Fuck, Josh,  _ run _ !” She screams, not caring about how loud she was being. Pushing the male in front of her, jolting him back to reality from whatever panic attack he was slowly succumbing to, he stumbles backwards. 

 

“Wha—”

 

“I can’t run Josh, just  _ get the fuck out of here _ .” 

 

She’s facing the wendigo now, her back to Josh. She’s taking steps backwards slowly, slowly. The wendigo is watching her, eyes glistening, locking onto her subtle movements. 

 

“Make it out alive, Josh, make it back to the lodge. Run as fast as you fucking can, just  _ please _ . Please do this one thing for me, oh  _ God _ .” 

 

Her last word comes out as a pathetic sob, but there is still no noise behind her, no tell-tale slapping of shoes against dirt to signify his escape. Her panic is bubbling at the brim, the meager contents of her stomach threatening to explode out of her being, and she knows she’s done for. There’s nothing left for her here. If there was anything of importance left to do in what remaining seconds she had, it was to get Josh out of here. 

 

And so, right before her red string of fate was cut, she looked over her shoulder and caught Josh’s eye. Mustering up the remaining vestiges of her strength, she smiles. Even though it breaks everything left inside of her, she smiles. She tries to be as reassuring as possible, but knows the wetness of her eyes isn’t helping. He is surprised, he is shock, and he is comprehending. He is lucid, and he is alive. She is almost dead. She is hanging on by a mere thread.

 

Even so, she fucking  _ smiles.  _

 

Closing her eyes, she turns around again. A small scuffle from behind her. 

 

_ Good. He’s gone _ . 

 

She opens her eyes. 

 

Sam is six feet away from the blazing yellow eyes of the wendigo. 

 

Caught by utter surprise, she falls down, landing bruisingly on her butt, her ankle giving out.  _ The little fucker was fast _ , Sam knew that much already,  _ but it was also goddamn silent! _ She wanted to scream, she wanted to hyperventilate, she wanted it to be  _ over _ already. The claws could slash through her throat like a hot knife through butter, and then it would be done. There would be pain, very brief focused intense pain, and then Samantha Giddings would be no more. 

 

_ Five feet away _ . 

 

Sam whimpered. She couldn’t help it. She was human. 

 

_ Four feet away _ . 

 

She tried to back up a little, acting purely on instinct. Instant regret pierced her ribs. The twitch of the wendigo’s head showed that it knew. She already knew that it knew, but now she  _ really  _ knew. 

 

_ Three feet away _ . 

 

The smell of rotting flesh was disgusting, and  _ holy fuck _ , was this the last smell she was going to inhale before she died? 

 

_ Two feet away _ . 

 

She wants to scrunch her eyes shut, but all of her muscles, every single one of them, failed her. They wouldn’t budge, not another inch. She was long gone. She was watching death in the eye. 

 

_ Wait _ . 

 

In her panicked daze, something had caught her eye. A black mark on the wendigo’s shoulder. 

 

_ Is that… ? _

 

Cold recognition slapped her with all the force of a freighter.  _ A butterfly tattoo.  _

 

_ Hannah’s butterfly tattoo _ . 

 

Immaculate, perfect, and just the way she remembered it. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from it, not for a single instant. It was too surreal, it was too cruel, it was— 

 

It was Hannah. This was the monster that Hannah had turned into. She had survived, she wasn’t killed by Mike in the sanitorium, she had been in the mines the entire time. She’s a wendigo, she’s a flesh-eater, she’s a goddamn abomination of nature, and she’s here. It’s been exactly a year since the last time she had seen her best friend, and Sam thought she could have cried. She could have, if fear had not gripped its unforgiving claw around her throat like a vice. 

 

Numbness flooded her being. This was not happening. Sam wasn’t there. 

 

She was watching the situation from somewhere far away. She was ten feet away, watching the wendigo— watching Hannah loom over her with a bloody sneer on her face, ready to devour her face. There was a blonde girl with a twisted ankle lying underneath the pale-skinned creature, Sam knew. Sam recognized the blonde girl vaguely, but couldn’t connect a name to her. 

 

_ Poor girl _ , she thought.  _ Poor monster _ , she thought. 

 

Hannah lifts her gnarled, wrinkled botched incarnation of a hand. 

 

_ One foot away _ .

 

She holds it at an angle, an angle that Sam sees is going to slash the poor blonde girl’s throat out the instant it falls down upon her. The cascade of red that would ensue would be gruesome. The girl would be dead. She would be no more. Shame. 

 

The blonde girl finally closed her eyes, for she was not there, not in the situation any longer. And then, Sam heard her say a few words. She didn’t bother quieting her voice, she let the wendigo hear her loud and clear, she let her voice be known because  _ she was not there _ . 

 

And so, she groaned out pitifully. 

 

“Poor Hannah, beautiful Hannah.” 

 

Memories flood through the blonde girl, unbidden. 

 

_ She’s trying prom dresses on with the twins.  _

 

_ Beth described it at least twenty times as the most fucking hype night that they would ever experience in their lives. She always said, “it’s ride or die night, baby!” to which Sam would giggle uncontrollably at. Sam was not a giggler, but Beth always had a way to push her buttons. Beth knew her inside out.  _

 

_ As Sam and Beth were waiting outside the changing room, Beth tapped her foot impatiently on the linoleum floor. Sam bet that she wouldn’t last more than five seconds without an outbur— _

 

_ “Hannah, you’re taking fucking for-ever,” Beth groaned dramatically, falling against Sam as if her legs just could not be bothered to hold her up anymore.  _

 

_ Sam chuckled as Hannah let out a muffled, “just one more minute, okay?”  _

 

_ A minute later, she walked out, true to her word.  _

 

_ Sam couldn’t fucking breathe.  _

 

_ Layers of royal purple silk enfolded her body, encapsulating her curves wonderfully. The fabric seemed to pinch at her dress playfully, before flowing to the ground in lacy, flowery cascades. As she twirled around to give the girls a good look at her, Sam was utterly mesmerized by the glittery, shimmery effect that the dress encaptured.  _

 

_ She was more mesmerized by the girl wearing it.  _

 

_ Beth let out a low whistle.  _

 

_ “Purple. I like it.”  _

 

_ Hannah rolled her eyes. “You’re a purple-loving maniac, you know that? Hello, I wanted  _ real _ feedback here!”  _

 

_ “Well, you’re gorg, obviously— I mean, you did steal  _ my  _ face in the womb, so what else can I say?”  _

 

_ Hannah elbowed Beth who grinned rakishly in response, and turned to Sam.  _

 

_ Sam had a hard time keeping her jaw shut, but managed to compose herself once Hannah asked her the unspoken question.  _

 

_ “You’re absolutely stunning, Hannah. Beautiful Hannah.” She barely heard herself say the words, the intensity of them unadulterated and pure.  _

 

_ The twins were shocked by the force behind Sam’s emotion as well.  _

 

_ “T-thanks, Sam,” Hannah stuttered out, a cute blush swimming across her face.  _

 

_ “Oh my god,” Beth breathed. “That’s it, then. You have to get this dress.”  _

 

_ “I thought you wanted to be the only one wearing purple?”  _

 

_ “Are you kidding? Do you see Sammy’s face right now? ‘Beautiful Hannah,’” she said in a mock high-pitched rendition of Sam’s voice, causing the blonde to flush pink as well, “Hell, you’ve got Sam like this by just lookin’ at you, how do you think the boys are going to react when they see you in this?”  _

 

_ She wiggled her eyebrows for effect, as Hannah’s blush raged on. It was clear to the both of them that she was thinking of a certain class president.  _

 

_ After that, whenever she and Beth went out with Hannah, they would always tease her, calling her “Beautiful Hannah,” and the younger Washington twin would laugh every time, a slight blush coming to her face whenever they called her that.  _

 

_ Sam meant it every single time to.  _

 

_ Hannah was the most beautiful girl she had ever seen. Maybe one day she would have gotten the courage to ask her out, to figure out whether the love that she felt for her was just a sisterly bond or something more. Maybe one day, she and Hannah would have laughed over Sam’s transient yet somehow lasting crush on her.  _

 

_ She really didn’t know, she wasn’t given enough time to figure it out, but what she had known was that she had to make sure. She had to make sure that Hannah knew she was wonderful, beautiful, amazing. So she kept telling her.  _

 

_ She told her at Hannah and Beth’s subsequent birthday’s, at various parties, when they were in sweats and turned binge watching Netflix into an olympic sport, and more.  _

 

_ Hannah. Beautiful Hannah.  _

 

_ Whenever she needed a shoulder to cry on, she would murmur the honey dulcet words into her ears, ticking them with her breath until Hannah’s miserable sobs turned into bouts of giggles, until Hannah would laugh and punch Sam’s shoulder to get her to stop, not ever wanting her to stop.  _

 

_ When she decided to get the butterfly tattoo, surprising even Beth— the most impulsive of decision-makers— Sam was there. She was with her as the needle dug into her skin, marking her skin with the irreversible black ink.  _

 

_ When she was done, she had looked at Sam nervously, intimate fragile insecurities laid out for Sam to do as she pleased with.  _

 

_ Well? She seemed to ask with no words at all.  _

 

_ Sam smiled.  _

 

_ Hannah. Beautiful Hannah.  _

 

_ And she smiled.   _

 

The claws of her friend were centimeters away from entering her body, cleaving through it like she was thin air. 

 

“Beautiful Hannah.” 

 

She awaited the instant flash of pain before she was no longer connected with this world. It did not come. 

 

_ What? _

 

Slowly, unbelievingly, her eyes fluttered open. 

 

It was still there, the amalgamation of what seemed to be pale, decaying skin sewn up over a sack of bones, what they called a wendigo, what she called Hannah. It was still there, she could smell it, she could almost  _ taste _ its essence in the air. But something flashed through those gaudy glowing eyes, something eerily close to recognition. 

 

The claw slowly drew back to Hannah’s side. 

 

Sam can’t breathe. 

 

Hannah’s giant maw drifted closer to her face, closer and closer. The jaw unhinged to reveal a row of crooked, razor sharp teeth, sharper than the deadly claws, and they were just a few hairs away from the blonde’s face, a few hairs width away from Sam’s death. 

 

And then Hannah screamed. 

 

She screamed a high pitched shriek, one that reverbrated right into Sam’s core. Her nerve endings lit with fire at the stimulus, her brain shocked into silence, her muscles spasming uncontrollably. For one intense moment, Sam had been thrust into the fires of hell. 

 

The wendigo stops. Hannah backs away. Sam wants to reach for her but she can’t. The wendigo turns around. Hannah stalks away. Sam wants to reach for her. 

 

But she can’t. 

 

Hannah is gone. 

 

The wendigo’s shrill cry echoes in her head. Somehow, Sam knows. She knows. It was like a warning screech, it was like a hello and a goodbye all at the same time. She knows and so she breaks. She thinks of Hannah and she breaks. 

 

Even having been tortured down here in these mines for a year, Hannah still managed to hold on to some vestiges of her humanity. She still fought against the constant hunger even though every minute, every goddamn second must have been tearing at her, a boiling writhing pain from deep within her that would have drove anyone to insanity within moments. 

 

Hannah Washington wasn’t anyone. She was strong, she was brave, and she was beautiful. And Sam would never see her again. 

 

She breaks. 

 

Curling up into a pitiful ball, she sobs violently. She sobs because she can’t call Hannah back to stay, she can’t go after her and change anything, she can’t get Beth back, and she can’t, she just  _ can’t _ . She can’t do fucking anything. 

 

Numbness threatens to overtake her body, her soul, and Sam knows. She knows she’s reached her emotion threshold, she knows she’s been treading the line between life and death and maybe even the third one between insanity and living, and she’s too tired to keep her balance. She’s going to fall off the tightrope, the one strung with so much tension that she feels it in every tendon of her muscles, every brittle heartstring she’d frozen in the icy depths of the water she’d waded in, and she can’t do anything. She can’t do anything about it. So she sobs. 

 

A warm weight on her shoulder disperses the numbness away, only to be replaced with a vague sense of confusion. 

 

She flinches, but the weight remains steady. 

 

_ Josh _ . 

 

Looking up at the face looming over her, she sees Josh. He’s grim faced, he’s lucid, and he’s  _ there _ . He’s still there. Sam thinks she should yell at him for not having left, pinch his cheek like Beth would have done, but all she feels is relief. It makes sense that Josh wouldn’t have left her, she supposes subconsciously. 

 

He knows best of all how it feels to be left behind. It makes sense that he wouldn’t leave her behind. Because it makes sense, she feels relief. Because there is logic in this alternate universe she had been cruelly thrust into, this nightmarish scape where the monsters in her closet come to life, she feels relief.  

 

Wordlessly, he helps her up, using his dirtied, muscled arms to support her weight. Once she’s steady on her feet, she considers trying to put a little more weight on her right foot. The unbidden whimper that leaves her lips is answer enough. Josh shows a flash of concern, and takes one of her arms, draping it over his shoulder gently. It’s easier to walk now, it’s easier now that he’s taking some of the burden. The warmth at her side is alive, it’s sentient, and Sam revels in it. 

 

They both turn around, watching Hannah’s receding shadow. 

 

They don’t say a word but he knows. Sam knows he knows, and Sam knows too. 

 

For their entire life, Hannah and Beth were attached at the hip, so why should it be any different now? It makes sense that Hannah stayed behind, just like it makes sense that Josh stayed behind for Sam. Hannah’s staying here, she’s staying with Beth. It makes sense. 

 

Sam grips Josh’s shoulder even tighter as they turn towards the mine’s entrance. She still had him. She didn’t leave him behind, and she found him, and he’s alive. She made it. 

  
The two walked out. 


	6. Chapter 6

_ They made it to the cabin. Mike greeted Sam with a hug, and he had even pulled Josh in for a hug too. It was one of the more surreal sights Sam had seen that night.  _

 

_ The other survivors trickled in too, eventually. Sam didn’t know if her body could take any more relief— Emily, Chris, Ashley— they were all alive. They were in various states of disarray, but they were alive.  _

 

_ Emily was severely disheveled, sweaty, and if it were even possible, looked considerably more bitchy that she usually did. Chris and Ashley were close, close together, and desperately so. It was as if they were the last two humans on the planet, and Sam understands it. She thinks it won’t last forever, that the delusions will leave their eyes as soon as the affection, but she doesn’t say it. Not now. Not ever. She doesn’t say it because they’re  _ alive _.  _

 

_ It’s almost dawn and they think they’re safe, but then  _ they _ come.  _

 

_ The wendigo are in the lodge.  _

 

_ All six of them freeze in place.  _

 

_ The wendigo are fighting, fighting desperately, fighting for reasons unknown to Sam, unknown to all of them, and one of them is thrown into the fireplace. One of them breaks the gas pipe. Gas leak. _

 

_ Sam and Mike share a glance. They know what to do.  _

 

_ Every so often, another one of their friends runs out of the lodge, runs out to safety. Good. Sam isn’t going to do what she knows she needs to do before all of them are out. She isn’t going to be the cause of any of their deaths.  _

 

_ At one point, the wendigo is inches, centimeters, seconds away from her face. She is a breath away from death, she so desperately, desperately does not want to die. So she stays still. She doesn’t move a fucking inch. She doesn’t because she’s come this far.  _

 

_ Finally, when Mike is the last one to leave having pulled the frozen Josh outside along with him, she lunges.  _

 

_ She hears the wendigo jump at her, but it doesn’t matter; she lunges in a jerky motion, as fast as her ankle would allow her, and flips the light switch. Something behind her knocks the wendigo out of the way, maybe another wendigo, but she has no time to look back and thank her saving grace.  _

 

_ She limps, she teeters as fast as she can outside of the time bomb, and she makes it.  _

 

_ Mike grabs her as she falls outside the door, and drags her a great distance away from it until the two drop in an exhausted heap with the others outside the lodge.  _

 

_ She doesn’t see it, but she hears it. She hears the explosion, and she feels the heat singe at some of her arm hairs, and she can taste the screams of the wendigo as they rotted away into nothing. They were dead.  _

 

_ She sits up and watched the cabin burn, the sun slowly rising in the backdrop of the mountains. It was beautiful.  _

 

_ At some point, Jess and Matt stumble upon them, looking worse for wear and disheveled. Jess had a gaunt look to her eyes and was uncharacteristically quiet. Sam didn’t think she’d hear her voice in a while, but she was still alive. Matt seemed jittery, as if every noise could have been a wendigo, as if he would never stop moving again. But they were alive.  _

 

_ She turns around and sees Josh beside her, looking lost and confused. She thanks her lucky stars, thanks whatever entity may or may not have been watching over her that night, that Josh didn’t slip into an episode when the wendigo had infiltrated the cabin. She is so, so thankful. She knows that he’s probably not really there with her at the moment, he’s probably dissociating the fuck out, but it’s okay.  _

 

_ It’s okay because they’re all alive. They had made it out, and they’re okay. They would deal with the injuries, the various levels of trauma later.  _

 

_ Sam can’t help the hysterical giggle that leaves her.  _

  
_ Ten minutes later, the rangers arrive in majestic, blinding helicopters.  _


	7. Chapter 7

They all survived, but barely. 

 

Jessica’s eyes are what concerned Sam the most out of all their disheveled states. She looked haunted, haunted beyond repair, and she hadn’t said a word to them yet. Sam wonders what Jessica experienced, but also does not want to know at the same time. 

 

The police interviewed all of them afterwards. 

 

_ “If you need someone to talk t—” _

 

_ “I’m fine.”  _

 

_ “Sometimes after a traumatic experience—” _

 

_ “I said I’m fine.”  _

 

Hers was just a stream of denials, of insisting that she was fine when she knew it wasn’t. 

 

_ “What was in the mines, Sam?”  _

 

_ “I’ve seen what’s down there… and I’d give anything to unsee it.” _

 

She wonders how Josh’s interview went. 

 

After the tiring, bland tirade of questions, the police blessedly transported all of them to the nearest hospital. 

 

Now, they’re in the waiting room, waiting to leave. 

 

Sam grips the uncomfortable plastic of the grey chair she was sitting in, and took in her surroundings for what must have been the sixtieth time. It didn’t matter how many times she did it, she knew she would need to confirm that this was the reality, that this was  _ real _ . She knew she would have to go to some form of therapy after tonight, but for now, all she could do was take in her surroundings and make sure that everything was still  _ there _ . 

 

Chris is unusually quiet, sitting next to Ashley who’s leaning against him, clutching at him like a lifeline. Like they were still in that damned lodge, still dancing around their feelings towards each other, still playing. Except she looked dead now. 

 

Matt is distraught, jittery and shaking his leg uncontrollably, eyes flickering every which way. Sam thinks they’re in the same boat; he can’t believe that these are his surroundings either, can he? Can he even comprehend that this is their reality now, that they’re not in the hellscape anymore? 

 

He’s holding onto Emily as well, and his grip looks bruising. If it hurts, Emily shows no sign of it. Emily looks fucking pissed, like she’s just missed the premier of her favorite series, and Sam has to hold back an amused snort. Even in the face of death, Emily finds it within herself to be bitchy, she finds it within herself to hold a grudge with whatever cruel fate decided that the eight friends would live through hell that night. But Sam knows she’s still as human as the rest of them, she’s still as traumatized as the rest of them, and she knows it because she’s sitting as far away from Mike as possible. She’s avoiding the male who almost took away her life, the man who she had once loved, the one who held a gun to her point-blank. He doesn’t exist to her anymore, and nothing can repair that. 

 

Mike is next to Sam, and he’s quiet. The heroic leader of the group, Sam mused. He’s distraught, he’s waiting for Jessica. 

 

Jessica, spunky prissy Jessica, who was still in the hospital, being treated for head wounds and severe scratches and bleeding. 

 

Sam looks down at her ankle, which had been wrapped up in tight gauze. The doctors said that she wouldn’t need a cast, but would need to wear a medical boot for a month. She had sprained her ankle, tearing some ligaments along the side of her foot as well. She’d had worse. 

 

Sam was still Sam. 

 

She knows that she should hate Josh for pranking them, but she knows that Josh wasn’t in his right mind as well. She remembers, she remembers much too clearly,  _ much _ too clearly how she found the papers in the Psycho’s workshop, the one’s about the anti-depressants he was on. After the events of the night, after realizing the hallucinations and terrors that Josh saw invisible to other people, she wondered. Did depression cause hallucinations? That was something else, something like schizophrenia— it would explain the voices, the screaming, the things that Josh saw that no one else did. At the least, Sam knew Josh wasn’t being treated correctly after her escapade in the Psycho’s workshop. 

 

What else would explain how deranged Josh had become, how he had been calling out his sisters’ names when no one else could see them, when they were not actually there? Sam came to the conclusion. He had been taking the wrong medicine his entire life. He had wanted to be good, he had even began taking them in higher doses when they weren’t working, he wanted to be  _ good _ . It wasn’t his fault the doctors were giving him the wrong thing. Josh genuinely thought he did his friends no harm. He was deluded. He just wanted to scare them. He didn’t want any of them to die. 

 

“Samantha Giddings,” Mike says from next to her, jolting her out of her oddly guilt-ridden cycle of thoughts, “I know that look on your face. You’re thinking too hard. Just stop, Sam. We’ve had enough thinking for one night. Just stop.” 

 

She knows he says it with genuine concern in his voice. Even after having faced the longest, most painful night of their lives, Mr. Class President still finds it within himself to feel concern for Sam. She turns towards him and wants to snap. She wants to scream, but she doesn’t. 

 

Instead, she whispers, “I can’t.”

 

He is silent for a moment. He closes his eyes. 

 

And then he opens them. He looks at Sam, really looks at her, clears the numb haze threatening to overtake them, and talks to her. 

 

“You were so brave tonight Sam. I don’t know how you did it.” 

 

“Mike—” She’s about to interrupt him, to tell him to cut the bullshit, to tell him that flowery words wouldn’t work on her, but he doesn’t let her. 

 

“No, no, listen,” he says with purpose, shifting in his seat, piercing her with his stare. “I need you to know this Sam, I need you to know that your… your  _ story _ is so fucking terrifying.” 

 

He’s talking about Sam’s ordeal back in the mines. Sam had told him how they had met Hannah, how Hannah had dragged Josh away, how Sam went after him, how Hannah spared Sam. Sweet, beautiful Hannah. 

 

“If I was in your position Sam, and I loathe to admit it, I don’t know if I would have had it in me to go back for Josh.” 

 

Sam blinks at the rather backhanded compliment and says nothing. She doesn’t know how to respond, at first. It’s a hypothetical, she wanted to say— it’s just a hypothetical situation, so how would Mike  _ know _ if he would have went back for Josh or not? 

 

And then she says something. 

 

“I can’t lose him Mike. I already lost Beth and Hannah, I already lost my best friends, my sisters. I couldn’t lose him too. I couldn’t do it Mike.” 

 

A pause. He looks thoughtful.

 

“Do you think he would’ve done it for you, Sam?” 

 

It’s a quiet question, barely a rasp, but Sam hears it. She hears it and she doesn’t want to answer. 

 

She knows that in the mental state Josh had been reduced to, he probably wouldn’t have. It’s a fact, she thinks. She’s saddened by it, but at the end of the day, it’s simply a fact. Hell, he wouldn’t have even been able to save  _ himself _ , let alone Sam. Her blood runs cold at the thought of Josh, left wandering those mines alone, but not truly alone. His mind would have provided him new terrors to scream at, to madly mumble and mutter to himself about until a wendigo finally found him and killed him. 

 

That would be the  _ merciful _ way to go. But Sam thinks that the Washingtons were not very luck people, so she knows. She knows that Josh would have been left to wander those twisting, cavernous mines for hours, days, months. Eventually, he’d succumb to the hunger, succumb faster than Hannah did. And then he’d turn.

 

She shakes her head in a weak effort to get the thoughts away from her mind. She didn’t need to inflict any more pain on herself than she had already endured thus far. 

 

_ But what about the Josh that she knew all throughout high school? _

 

The one whom she had grown so close to in a matter of years? Would he have saved her? 

 

_ Yes. Maybe. I don’t know, what the FUCK— _

 

Sam decides to not focus on hypotheticals any more. By the look on Mike’s face, he doesn’t seem interested in pressuring Sam for an answer either. 

 

He’s just waiting for Jessica, waiting to see her again, waiting to see her  _ alive _ . She knows how much Mike loved—  _ loves _ her. She also knows that the precious liveliness that she used to bare proudly for the entire world to see has been dashed, has been destroyed. 

 

She wonders what Josh is going through now. 

 

She knows they were still working on him like they were still working on Jess, but he was in a different ward. They’re going to do a mental eval on him to determine exactly what was going on with him, she knows.

 

_ They were watching the lodge burn down. So many memories were disappearing with the burning down of this lodge, so many damn good memories. But Sam still felt relief. She was so relieved that this was the beginning of being free again. She was going to escape the terrors that plagued her and her friends tonight, and she was going to live again. She was going to fucking live.  _

 

_ Eight friends sat down next to each other, snow mingling with ashy soot, watching the unforgiving arms of fire engulf the wooden house. Sam is next to Josh, her hand on his.  _

 

_ They are all silent. Mike breaks the quiet.  _

 

_ “We can’t tell them about the wendigos,” he rasps out. No one responds, and he says it again. He continues, “We can’t have them come back up here again. No one should ever come back up here. If we tell them about the wendigo, they’ll think we’re insane.”  _

 

_ Josh lets out a giggle at the word “insane”. Sam tries not to think about it too hard.  _

 

_ After another moment of silence, Ashley pipes up.  _

 

_ “So what are we going to do? Blame Josh?”  _

 

_ Before anyone can respond, indignant rage bubbles up within the blonde. She snaps at the ginger.  _

 

_ “What the  _ fuck _ , what are you talking about? No way in fucking hell are we going to do that, that’s fucking awful! He didn’t kill anyone, damn it!”  _

 

_ She almost doesn’t notice Mike’s placating hand on her shoulder, and resists the temptation to shove it off like a toddler in the middle of a tantrum. She knows she shocked them, she knows she’s frothing at the mouth. Calm Sam, steady Sam. Sam’s the pacifist, she’s the one who would never antagonize any of them, she would always think fast on her feet, she was the one who never started arguments.  _

 

_ Gone.  _

 

_ “Then what do you suggest we do, Sam?”  _

 

_ The question comes from Emily this time. It lacks any of her usual, sarcastic bite. There was just exhaustion in her voice, clear as the rising sun. Sam empathized with her.  _

 

_ “We tell them the truth about him, and only the truth. We are not going to demonize him. We will tell them the truth, and he will get help.”  _

 

_ She gripped Josh’s hand a little tighter. Everyone nods, even Ashley. Good.  _

 

Good. 

 

She hopes the mental evaluation goes well. She told the police in her interview about her theory, about her conclusion. About how she realized that Josh’s meds were doing jackshit to help him, about how he needed  _ real _ help, about how he was a victim just as the rest of them were. Although she didn’t talk about the wendigos, she made vague references to the  _ monsters of the night _ . They probably thought she was talking about a bear or something. It was fine with her. 

 

Sam sits in the waiting room. She doesn’t know what to do. She doesn’t know what the fuck else to do. 

 

She turns to Mike and asks him. She pours all of her emotions into the desperate question, and asks him. 

 

Mike tells her to wait. All that’s left for them to do is just wait. And so she does. 

 

Samantha Giddings waits. She waits for months. 

  
She waits. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :)

In those months, Sam goes to college. 

 

She isn’t the only one who tries to move on, he realizes. 

 

All eight of the friends go through journeys of their own, all glad that they survived but still haunted by the terrors of that night. 

 

Matt and Emily break up eventually. Matt probably got tired of Emily’s constant bitching, which only increased after that night on the mountains, and they broke up. Surprisingly, it was mutual, and it was amicable. Nothing much was amicable with Emily, especially not after Beth and Hannah had gone missing, but they still stayed in touch. They were still friends. Wasn’t that just  _ nice _ ? 

 

Matt went into sports or something, the name of the college he went to not really ringing a bell. Emily, on the other hand, went to some big name expensive college, her 4.0 GPA cinching her a full-tuition. She was studying to be a lawyer, working her fucking ass off. It’s fitting, that her ultra-bitchiness would eventually cause her to pursue a career in which she got  _ paid _ for being bitchy. 

 

Ashley and Chris had an on/off relationship before they finally realized it wasn’t working. Their split was a little less amicable than Matt and Emily’s, but they were fine. Maybe Ashley and Chris reminded each other too much of  _ that night _ . Maybe it was something else. They were both undecided, but Ashley was leaning towards becoming a teacher. Seeing bright new faces everyday, ones that didn’t know the fear and horrors that the world had to offer, was a therapeutic experience in and of itself. 

 

Mike and Jess are still together, and still going strong. They moved in together, spending every waking moment together. Jess isn’t always mentally there, she wasn’t always speaking, but she was trying. He thinks Mike cried with joy the night Jess told him she wanted to start learning again. She wanted to be with people, experience a regular life. Jess was going to attend community college in the following spring semester. How wonderful. 

 

Mike and Sam still stayed in touch. They never drifted apart, not really. They were the one’s who had taken the reigns that night, the ones who thrusted themselves into the unspoken leadership positions. They grew an unbreakable bond that night, he supposes. 

 

They live near each other, in the same apartment complex in fact. Sam and Matt commute to the same college. Sam helps out with Jess sometimes, and Jess smiles whenever she comes over. 

 

Sam is studying to become an environmentalist. In her free time, she goes through therapy sessions. They’ve all tried therapy at one point. 

 

_ “How are you feeling?”  _

 

_ “I feel fine.” He means it, for once in his life.  _

 

_ “How so?”  _

 

_ “I don’t hear the voices anymore. I don’t see Beth and Hannah’s bloodied faces next to their pictures. I don’t see the monsters. That’s pretty fucking fine to me.”  _

 

_ He doesn’t get chastised for his language. Instead, he receives a smile in return.  _

 

_ “Well, Joshua Washington, this is the start of your life. Enjoy being ‘fine,’ Joshua. Embrace it with all your heart.”  _ __   
  


_ He decides he will _ . 

 

Joshua Washington stands in his family’s home, the one that he had lived in for many years, the one that still had his sister’s rooms in it. All of his friends are taking strides, making their own firsts, creating their lives despite the trauma he put them through. It tooks months of therapy to realize his faults, but he knew he needed to apologize. 

 

He knew he needed to make amends. He  _ wanted _ to. 

 

The ghosts of the bruising grip around his waist still haunts him. Hannah. 

 

The feathery light touches, her sobbing as she embraced him, as she refused to let him go, as she refused to leave him for dead. Sam. 

 

He would start with her. It was always her. 

 

Taking a huge breath, he was scared. He was scared of what his future may hold, of the things that he would do, but he needed to continue. He picked up the phone, and dialed in the number he knew by memory. 

 

_ One ring.  _

 

_ Two ring.  _

 

_ Three rings _ . 

 

The  _ click _ of someone on the other end picking up the phone. His heart skips a beat. 

 

“Hello, this is Sam. Who is this?” 

 

The familiar voice filters through the speaker, and it’s just as he remembers it. Resilient, unabashed, strong, and pure. He can’t help but smile. 

 

“It’s Josh. Let’s catch up.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end of that! I actually wrote this in the span of less than a week, when the inspiration hits it hits HARD. I still love Until Dawn and I hope this fandom gets more love! 
> 
> Leave a comment and let me know what you thought!!


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